Sunday, 6 November 2011

Apple Tarte Tatin.

I made this for pudding last night as one of my flatmates little brothers is staying and she wanted to have some friends for supper so he could meet them. We don't have a metal handled frying pan in our flat which you need for this recipe as you have to pt the pan in the oven. So I improvised with a shallow Le Creuset pan, which worked well. The quantities are based on a 9inch pan I ended up using significantly more!

Ingredients:

Enough eating apples to fill you chosen pan once they have been peeled and cored. For a nine inch pan this will be about 6 medium sized apple. 4oz unsalted butter. 3/4 cup granulated sugar. I split this half and half with soft brown sugar as I had run out of granulated.One packet of either puff or shortcrust pastry. If you are making it yourself this is about 8oz of flours worth of pastry. I used puff but I am reliably informed that shortcrust works just as well.

Peel, core, and quarter of the apples. Melt the butter in the pan and add the sugar stir until the two are combined but don't worry about waiting for the sugar to melt. Arrange the apples, however you wish but remember you serve it flipped out so what you will see is the surface touching the bottom of the pan. Don’t worry about the gaps peel more apples if you need to. Place the pan over medium-high heat until the liquid begins to bubble. After 15-20 minutes the juice from the apples will reduce and the caramel will become a deep golden colour. Don't worry if the caramel still looks very thin at this point it will thicken as it cools. Role your pastry out until it is slightly larger than the pan. Place it on top of the fruit and tuck the edges into the pan with a knife. Bake 25 to 30 minutes until the pastry is a golden colour at 180C of for the aga the bottom rung of the top oven but watch it as you may need to put a cold shelf in. Let the tart rest for 5 minutes before flipping it out, this lets the caramel thicken slightly so when you do flip it it doesn't run off the plate but sticks to your tart.